Want to delve into the Criterion Collection but don’t know where to start?
We’ve just introduced some changes that make sifting through the Criterion Collection on Hulu Plus a lot less daunting. Some brand new features will help you discover new films to love as we continue to additional titles from Criterion — more than 100 since launching the section in February, nearly all of which stream exclusively on Hulu Plus, with many others to come in coming weeks.
Since Criterion has compiled so many great works by the world’s greatest filmmakers, we’ve added new functionality that allows you to sort by director. So now you can devote an entire weekend to watching 10 Charlie Chaplin films from just one page.
Additionally, we’ve begun adding supplemental videos from the Criterion Collection on Hulu Plus. You can find these as you watch a film, and they include some fantastic highlights, including:
love all this, totally off the subject though… can we get de palma’s ‘blow out’ added to the films available? ‘sisters’ is a lot of fun, but have been aching to see that restored criterion version of ‘blow out’.
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I, like many others, got Hulu+ for the Criterion Collection (and Daria) almost solely. But I was hoping to see Wes Anderson films (Bottle Rocket, Life Aquatic, etc.) here, too, as they are a part of the CC.
I think the Japanese service has Life Aquatic, no?
Obviously the Criterion addition is a winner, and I plan on hanging around as long as these films remain. I learned about Hulu through Apple TV, and wouldn’t have considered another subscription service except for the Criterion content that doesn’t seem to expire or rotate (the way Netflix handles all movies, whether they’re good or bad!). Okay, so I’ve happily canceled my subscription to Netflix and my wife and I have been hopelessly addicted to Criterion through Hulu for about a week now. Incidentally, I’ve referred two other friends who have started subscriptions for Criterion content.
Here are a few improvements we hope you’ll take under consideration as the project grows. I’m glad to see the release-date appear on the metadata, but movie-buffs really want to see the DIRECTOR and COUNTRY OF ORIGIN/ ORIGINAL LANGUAGE as well. Not only does this provide me with a location-context for the story, but it tells me whether or not I should anticipate subtitles.
Also Criterion fans are completists, so most of us (I would imagine) don’t really pay much attention to the categoried surfing (e.g. Heist, masquerade, girlie flick, etc.) although I understand that it’s useful for recommendations and marketing. Anyway, what we want is an A-Z or just any page where we can see the entire collection and go through it ourselves preferable without clicking, scrolling would be preferable. That would almost be like bringing back the rental-store-experience of browsing and discovering cool titles on your own.
Searching tonight for “bleu” and “blue” didn’t find the Kieślowski film I was looking for. Had to arrow down through quite a few thumbnails before coming across it. Your search feature clearly needs work – search for title, in translation and original, search for actors, for directors.
Also, how about an alphabetical list of the Criterion films?
Kevin, above, remarked that the reason he’d subscribed to hulu was the Criterion collection. I, too. I wouldn’t watch the stuff with commercials, no matter how good it may be, but the Criterion collection is a winner. Please continue to work on it.
Is there a way that we can access a film’s information without the movie starting immediately? It seems that every time I click on a film title in hopes of reading specifics (such as running time, year released or the director’s name) I get sent to a page where the movie begins immediately. It is frustrating to not have access to this information without the movie beginning within seconds of landing on the film’s page. There needs to be a way to provide that information in a different manner such as a button that says, “Start film” as opposed to letting it start on it’s own.
Color me stupid, but I can’t seem to find any of the supplements. How do I know which films have supplements available, which supplements they are, and how to watch them?
Love the Criterion Collection on Hulu (the single reason I decided to keep my Hulu account). Keep up the fantastic work! :-)
A suggestion: For foreign-language films, it would be great if you could include the names of movies in their original language, e.g. The Burmese Harp (Biruma no tategoto).
It would be great if you could filter out all the Criterion films exclusive to Hulu, the films that have spine numbers, and the films from the eclipse series. Thanks, and keep up the good work!
This is SO AWESOME. Major, major kudos to you, Hulu, for making these films available. The only feature I haven’t found yet that I’d really like is a downloadable (or otherwise printable) complete list of the current Hulu Criterion offerings.
I am new to Hulu Plus, but I am excited and eager, from what I am seeing-hearing. Just hope that Hulu and Netflex don’t keep me chained to the sofa. I believe that you people are interested in film and are truly trying to put out a great product.
I absolutely love the collection and appreciate the new filter capabilities–but they haven’t helped me find Buster Keaton’s The General in the collection. I do see, however, the abundance of Chaplin films (is that ten?) and that Hulu does have The General in its regular catalog. Maybe I just missed it?
Not sure if you’ll see this comment amidst all the spam, but these changes are fantastic! The Director category was much needed and the rest are a welcome bonus! Keep up the great work.
It’s great to see commercials have been inserted into the most recent additions. I was getting worried we would continue to watch classic films commercial-free.
I never thought I’d say this—but Geico ads go really well with Eric Rohmer films! I’m sure he would with how they cut right into a line of dialogue. Good stuff, Hulu!
My earliest movie exposure was heavily influenced by what my father could find at the local video store. He’d stop there on the way home from work and pick out one of new releases from the display of empty video boxes that lined the outer walls of the store. And so my early love of movies grew largely from a diet of American Hollywood blockbusters because that’s what dominated the most coveted merchandising space at our local video stores.
After college, I moved to Seattle, and some movie buffs I met there introduced me to a video store called Scarecrow Video. This was unlike any video store I’d ever encountered. It was enormous, carrying seemingly every movie ever put on video in any format, from VHS to laserdisc to DVD, including PAL videotapes and foreign region DVDs that required renting special machines to play. These were movies from all over the world, in all languages, sorted not just by new versus old but by country, director, and genre. It was at Scarecrow that I rented my first Criterion laser disc. Most of them were so rare that the store required a credit card deposit of several hundred dollars just to walk out of the store with the movie.
But it was worth it. The Criterion Collection is likely the preeminent distribution brand in the minds of movie buffs. They’ve earned that title in two key ways. One is by curating and licensing rights to a library of truly great, enduring movies. Secondly, when they bring those movies to the world, they do so with an attention to detail and quality that can only come from the purest love and respect for movies as an art form.
That’s why we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve added the Criterion Collection exclusively to our Hulu Plus service today. Criterion has digital streaming rights to over 800 of the films in their library, from a who’s who roster of directors: Antonioni, Bergman, Bresson, Bunuel, Chabrol, Chaplin, Clouzot, Cocteau, Dreyer, Eisenstein, Fassbinder, Fellini, Godard, Kaurismaki, Kieslowski, Kurosawa, Lang, Malle, Ozu, Renoir, Tati, Truffaut, Varda, and Welles, to name two handfuls. We’re launching with over 150 Criterion movies today, and we’ll be adding more titles each month. Among the launch list today are so many acknowledged classics: The 400 Blows, L’Avventura, The Battle of Algiers, Breathless, La Jetée, Jules and Jim, M, Pickpocket, Playtime, Rashomon, Seven Samurai, La Strada, and The Wages of Fear.
But just as exciting are the titles still to come. These include not just more well-known classics but also movies that have been difficult or impossible to find on video in any format. Le Silence de la Mer, by one of my favorite directors, Jean-Pierre Melville. The extended filmography of Kenji Mizoguchi. Early shorts by Chaplin. L’Assassin Habite au 21, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s first feature. This doesn’t even include the supplemental content Criterion is famous for and which we’ll bring to the Criterion experience on Hulu Plus over time: commentaries, documentaries, interviews, original trailers, essays, and more. Many of these will be digitized for the first time. We’re honored to partner with Criterion to make all this cinematic treasure available to movie lovers, critics, and historians alike.
Movies, unlike most of our TV programs, aren’t shot with ad breaks in mind, and it has always been tricky to find opportune moments to inject ad breaks in movies on Hulu.com so that we can compensate content owners while maintaining the optimum user experience. For Criterion, thanks to our advertising partners, Hulu Plus subscribers will be able to watch the Criterion Collection free of interruption. (Any ads will play up front.) For those who don’t have a Hulu Plus subscription, each month we’ll still rotate a few Criterion titles through Hulu.com with our normal periodic ad breaks.
The first set of Criterion movies are already available across all devices supported by the Hulu Plus service. On the web, you’ll find Criterion on Hulu at www.hulu.com/criterion. Please dive in and let us know what you think!
[...] Criterion Collection first appeared on Hulu back in February 2011. As of today, there are over 800 different films to stream from Criterion on Hulu, making it one of [...]
[...] Criterion Collection first appeared on Hulu back in February 2011. As of today, there are over 800 different films to stream from Criterion on Hulu, making it one of [...]
Found out about the Criterion collection offered on Hulu from Roger Ebert’s blog – this is wonderful! I love, love, love Criterion – when I have surplus cash, I would treat myself to one of their DVD titles every now and then. The Hulu subscription is a phenomenal price, and I get to indulge in all the great movies all I want! I read the plan is to gradually incorporate every Criterion title into the Hulu collection and I am so excited about this. Thank you Hulu for offering this amazing collection; this is a quality and content Netflix cannot match.
Now if Hulu could partner with Facets…? But that’s just me being greedy.
I haven’t signed up for it yet,but I want to sign up for it.Compared to other video sites, Hulu now makes wonderful sense! I am a huge fan of Allvie.Thanks for posting.
It’s a pity that all the comments here are spam. Note even the clever kind of spam either. I just found out about Hulu and I think this is a great promotion to pull people in and pay for the service. I haven’t signed up for it yet, but if Hulu is going to have great movies and you only have to pay what, eight dollars for the premier service, heck it beats sifting through all the virus filled pirate stuff out there.
I see that a whole bunch of new Criterion films have been added recently, as promised. I thank you for providing this fantastic groups of films. I am wondering about one thing:
“This doesn’t even include the supplemental content Criterion is famous for and which we’ll bring to the Criterion experience on Hulu Plus over time: commentaries, documentaries, interviews, original trailers, essays, and more.”
Can you give us any idea of when you might start adding these features for which Criterion is justifiably famous?
I realise this is off topic but while your blog looks pleasant, it would be far better if you’ll be able to use lighter colors too in the design. This will encourage a lot more scaners come to check it out more often!
All of these movies are a million years old and SUCK! Who would want to watch any of these? The people who would have watched these when they came out are all dead now……. Get a clue Hulu these movies are nothing to brag about, they are to be hid in shame that you even have them.
She is very flexible and full of fun. We both smoke and he is very talented and finding new exciting positions. We both have dirty minds and like to be funny as well.
Pricing. Will we have to pay to watch the movies on top of the subscription, or will the $7.99 monthly fee cover ALL charges? This is not clear on the Criterion or Hulu web pages.
I have renewed my HULU+ subscription because of this Criterion deal. I am so glad that there will be no ads interrupting the movie, that would have been a deal breaker.
Why was this collection even added to Hulu at all? Other than the Charlie Chaplin movies, The Theif of Baghdad, and The Red Balloon. I’ve never heard of any of these movies. Why did you think adding more B, C, and D list movies was a god idea? The Charlie Chaplin movies are the only films in the collection worth watching. You really dropped the ball on this one, Hulu. This is why I only watch TV shows on Hulu. You guys need to step up your game and add some good movies to Hulu.
For everyone who is wondering, the music in the background of the Criterion Collection ads is part of “The Carnival of the Animals”, by composer Camille Saint-Saens. The movement is called “Aquarium”, and you can listen to it on YouTube. This piece has been used in several film trailers, and influenced the score for Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”.
[...] Hulu has begun their acquisition by incrementally making available films from the collection online. As of today, 150 Criterion Collection films are available to be watched through the Hulu Plus service. The entire collection spans a staggering 800 films making Hulu’s selection considerably more robust than before the deal. While the collection as a whole will only be available to paying members, many of the films will be able to be viewed for free with advertisements. However, apparently ads will play in the front of films for paying customers. [...]
Thank you! Theses are the movies that shaped my visual aesthetic and cinematic palette. As a teenager these are the movies i would search out at my own small-town video store and sneak into the house to watch when i was on my own for an afternoon- each film an education and an adventure that further out into the world around me. thank you for bringing this collection on line.
Does anyone have any idea what the name of the score for the ads promoting this excellent addition to the content is (which is simply fantastic, by the way)?
It sounds so familiar, but I cannot remember the title or composer.
Finally Hulu Plus is beginning to show what it can be. I have stuck with this subscription since the beginning, hoping and waiting for it to blossom into something beyond a collection of middle of the road movies with some more worthy nuggets sprinkled here and there and even a few gems. Adding this group from Criterion is truly putting the “plus” in Hulu Plus. I hope Hulu can continue this. I’m definitely sold on the subscription if they can. Thank you.
Might not have read the blog if I didn’t see your name on it. Glad to see Jason took some good talent with him. Also glad to see that these will be without commercial interruption for Plus members. Interrupting films is bad enough, but if you had been interrupting *these* films… sacrilege. Thanks for giving me better value for my subscription dollar.
Brilliant. You’ve got my Hulu Plus money. I’ve just cut my cable tv, once I’d seen this. All of these movies come back to me from when I saw them for the first time, in the Fifties and Sixties.
So good of you to do this! Many of these I can watch over and over and over and over again!
Compared to other video sites, Hulu now makes wonderful sense!
We will have Criterion’s English subtitles on all foreign language films. For now these captions are always on, and eventually we will allow users to turn them on and off (for those of you fluent in Japanese and Swedish, among other languages)
Pretty nice article. I saw a webpage with a article exactly identical to this one a couple of days ago. This post is a week older so I recon they have just copied and eddited it. I’m not accusing you of plagiarism it’s merely just warning that it’s. I can not recall the url, sorry (age thing)
This is fantastic!! Growing up in Seattle, Scarecrow was THE place where my movie fanaticism started. Now I’m in NY with Hulu Plus streaming the Criterion collection. It all comes full circle. Great job by Hulu!!
Bravo, Hulu! I tried Hulu Plus before but wasn’t convinced. Now THIS makes me want to subscribe ritght this second. Really, what an amazing way to stand out. Sure, other services have the DVDs, but to watch online whenever you feel like, as if it was your own private movie library, is another thing. How many people will be exposed to great movies thanks to this? Keep up the good work! I’m a huge fan of Melville, and I’m looking forward to finally being able to watch Le Silence de la Mer. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
[...] is looking to court movie buffs to its subscription Plus offering, announcing Tuesday that it has acquired streaming rights for hundreds of classic films from The Criterion Collection. [...]
Incredible! And totally unexpected good news! I’ve resisted posting ‘favorites’ … books, movies, music… on any profiles anywhere. Mine are too changeable, and the word ‘eclectic’ wears out quickly. I’ll be posting a recommendation on Facebook now …. with a link back to HuluPlus if I can manage it. Thanks for this!
It’s not often that you get to say you are going to meet millions of new people on a single day while making a wish come true for many of your oldest friends, but that is exactly what is happening to the Criterion Collection today, as we go live with a major new offering on Hulu.
When I first started working at the Criterion Collection about seventeen years ago, I remember coming across a file box full of typed and handwritten letters that viewers had sent to Jon Mulvaney, our longtime customer liaison. At that time, the company was sometimes referred to as the “Rolls-Royce of laser discs” — an honor, to be sure, but one that was meaningful to a vanishingly small sliver of the American public. Many of our editions sold hundreds, not even thousands, of copies, at prices as high as $125 for a single film, but we had a very dedicated audience of movie lovers who had come to value Criterion for our commitment to quality, and for the array of special features we had pioneered starting in 1984, when we published the first ever commentary tracks and special features to appear alongside motion pictures.
It is tempting to say that a lot has changed since then, but the truth is, even more has remained constant. We don’t make laser discs anymore, but we are still dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and using the latest technology to present them in editions that will deepen viewers’ appreciation and understanding of the art of cinema. Customers still write to Jon Mulvaney all the time, but now instead of pens and typewriters, they send him e-mail or post to our Facebook page or Twitter.
When I think back to all the letters I read that day, I realize that even the subjects of those letters haven’t changed much at all. Most were and are passionate pleas for us to release a favorite film or seek out a particular director’s work, but then, as now, one of the most common requests was for some kind of subscription program that would give customers access to everything we put out.
Starting today, there are more than 150 of our most important films online on the Hulu Plus subscription service. Over the coming months, that number will swell to more than 800 films. For the true cinephile, this should be a dream come true. On Hulu Plus, you’ll find everything in our library, from Academy Award winners to many of the most famous films by art-house superstars like Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, and Federico Fellini to films so rare that they have never been seen in the U.S. in any medium. Some of these lost gems have been so hard to see that even most of the Criterion staff will see them for the first time only when they go live on Hulu Plus! Each month, we’ll be highlighting a mix of programs, centered on themes, directors, actors, and other creative artists, as well as celebrity picks, and mixing them with deep cuts from the catalog that will be unknown to all but the most prominent cinephiles in the world.
Criterion has always been a company driven by its mission, not by any particular medium, and while we still see our core business as producing the world’s best DVD and Blu-ray versions of the world’s best films, this new venture with Hulu represents a huge expansion of our reach. Not only will Hulu users have access to the largest digital archive of Criterion movies for the first time, Hulu Plus subscribers will now be able to stream our films (and yes, before long, many of our supplements too!) on a wide array of devices, including iPhones, iPads, PlayStations, and Internet-connected television sets.
And finally, why Hulu? In short, because they get it. As their regular viewers know, the Hulu user experience is exactly what it should be: simple, elegant, and focused on the content. Hulu has built their brand on letting the shows and movies take center stage. Nobody does it better, and we’re honored that they see Criterion as a good match for their audience. We’re going to do all we can to make the experience of Criterion on Hulu Plus an exciting adventure for all of us, so please check it out and let us know what you think.
At the moment, we don’t have any international streaming rights for our content, so we’re not able to stream outside of the US. Before we can, we need to obtain streaming rights for each show and movie in each specific region.
It’ll take some time, and I don’t have a definitive timeline just yet, so thank you for your patience in the meantime.
Ive been in love with Hulu for a very long time. Your marketing strategy was priceless. first, lure me away with FREE and all my fav shows. toss in a few good movies, and then blamo, I hit something I want and could have, for free, if I just waited one more week. I didnt wait. SO, I got sucked in with the very low price. I wasn’t happy to pay it because I can see that HULU has some great advertising paying the way already. But then again…its way better then 10.00 cable. Hell, its way better than 64.00 Cable. But seriously guys, you have a LOT of ads. and they are SOOOO repetitive. So, I figure you must have to charge for now, because maybe you dont have enough advertisers yet.
Keep the price low and get some variety in the ads and I have no doubt you will rule the world.
and, one more thing…does anyone know how to use a digital TV as a second monitor? I like to watch TV while I do other things on my computer and my poor tv is just sitting there gathering dust! seriously, email diva at diva-designs dot come if you have any ideas..there has to be a way without buying some lame box.
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This is fantastic news! I will definitely be keeping my hulu plus subscription. I just need to know, are these movies completely uncut / unedited? I don’t want to be seeing any bad words bleeped out or scenes cut out, please! Thanks!
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love all this, totally off the subject though… can we get de palma’s ‘blow out’ added to the films available? ‘sisters’ is a lot of fun, but have been aching to see that restored criterion version of ‘blow out’.
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bucnochryiii
Yes, alphabetical list of criterion films, please. Kind of baffling why this doesn’t already exist …
I, like many others, got Hulu+ for the Criterion Collection (and Daria) almost solely. But I was hoping to see Wes Anderson films (Bottle Rocket, Life Aquatic, etc.) here, too, as they are a part of the CC.
I think the Japanese service has Life Aquatic, no?
Hulu,
Obviously the Criterion addition is a winner, and I plan on hanging around as long as these films remain. I learned about Hulu through Apple TV, and wouldn’t have considered another subscription service except for the Criterion content that doesn’t seem to expire or rotate (the way Netflix handles all movies, whether they’re good or bad!). Okay, so I’ve happily canceled my subscription to Netflix and my wife and I have been hopelessly addicted to Criterion through Hulu for about a week now. Incidentally, I’ve referred two other friends who have started subscriptions for Criterion content.
Here are a few improvements we hope you’ll take under consideration as the project grows. I’m glad to see the release-date appear on the metadata, but movie-buffs really want to see the DIRECTOR and COUNTRY OF ORIGIN/ ORIGINAL LANGUAGE as well. Not only does this provide me with a location-context for the story, but it tells me whether or not I should anticipate subtitles.
Also Criterion fans are completists, so most of us (I would imagine) don’t really pay much attention to the categoried surfing (e.g. Heist, masquerade, girlie flick, etc.) although I understand that it’s useful for recommendations and marketing. Anyway, what we want is an A-Z or just any page where we can see the entire collection and go through it ourselves preferable without clicking, scrolling would be preferable. That would almost be like bringing back the rental-store-experience of browsing and discovering cool titles on your own.
Thanks and keep it up!
Searching tonight for “bleu” and “blue” didn’t find the Kieślowski film I was looking for. Had to arrow down through quite a few thumbnails before coming across it. Your search feature clearly needs work – search for title, in translation and original, search for actors, for directors.
Also, how about an alphabetical list of the Criterion films?
Kevin, above, remarked that the reason he’d subscribed to hulu was the Criterion collection. I, too. I wouldn’t watch the stuff with commercials, no matter how good it may be, but the Criterion collection is a winner. Please continue to work on it.
Is there a way that we can access a film’s information without the movie starting immediately? It seems that every time I click on a film title in hopes of reading specifics (such as running time, year released or the director’s name) I get sent to a page where the movie begins immediately. It is frustrating to not have access to this information without the movie beginning within seconds of landing on the film’s page. There needs to be a way to provide that information in a different manner such as a button that says, “Start film” as opposed to letting it start on it’s own.
Kino has the rights to Buster Keaton’s films, including The General. They are not part of the Criterion Collection.
Color me stupid, but I can’t seem to find any of the supplements. How do I know which films have supplements available, which supplements they are, and how to watch them?
Love the Criterion Collection on Hulu (the single reason I decided to keep my Hulu account). Keep up the fantastic work! :-)
A suggestion: For foreign-language films, it would be great if you could include the names of movies in their original language, e.g. The Burmese Harp (Biruma no tategoto).
Shouldn’t “The Devil and Daniel Webster” be part of the Criterion collection? Hulu doesn’t seem to have it.
Finally, good movies on hulu.
It would be great if you could filter out all the Criterion films exclusive to Hulu, the films that have spine numbers, and the films from the eclipse series. Thanks, and keep up the good work!
This is SO AWESOME. Major, major kudos to you, Hulu, for making these films available. The only feature I haven’t found yet that I’d really like is a downloadable (or otherwise printable) complete list of the current Hulu Criterion offerings.
I am new to Hulu Plus, but I am excited and eager, from what I am seeing-hearing. Just hope that Hulu and Netflex don’t keep me chained to the sofa. I believe that you people are interested in film and are truly trying to put out a great product.
I absolutely love the collection and appreciate the new filter capabilities–but they haven’t helped me find Buster Keaton’s The General in the collection. I do see, however, the abundance of Chaplin films (is that ten?) and that Hulu does have The General in its regular catalog. Maybe I just missed it?
Not sure if you’ll see this comment amidst all the spam, but these changes are fantastic! The Director category was much needed and the rest are a welcome bonus! Keep up the great work.
Hi Alvin,
Thanks for bringing the ads in the Eric Rohmer films to our attention; they’re not intended to be there. We’re addressing the issue now.
It’s great to see commercials have been inserted into the most recent additions. I was getting worried we would continue to watch classic films commercial-free.
I never thought I’d say this—but Geico ads go really well with Eric Rohmer films! I’m sure he would with how they cut right into a line of dialogue. Good stuff, Hulu!
Criterion on Hulu Plus is #WINNING